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This paper reports on a study that explored tourists' profiles (such as gender, age, level of education, employment status, etc) and the potential that they would embark on pilgrimage tourism in selected municipalities in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province of South Africa. The study, which applied the Local Economic Development (LED) and Tourism Value Chains (TVCs) theories, finds that South African religious tourism has the potential to make socio-economic contributions, but it is not yet perceived in that manner by local stakeholders including municipalities and religious leaders. This reveals that tourists are not sufficiently aware of religious pilgrimages and their potential benefits for the country's economic development. The study recommends that stakeholders (municipalities, religious leaders, pilgrims, tourists, local businesspeople and community members) work together to harness the socio-economic potentials of these pilgrimages. It is argued that this would make it possible for pilgrimage sites to be better appreciated in terms of religious and exchange value purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religious sector is another sector of tourism, and so this study aimed at establishing whether the pilgrimage destinations would be perceived as a socio-economic enhancer or contributor for the country. African religious pilgrimages can play an integral part of pilgrimage destinations of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). The African religious pilgrimages can contribute to tourism development and subsequently to the general local socio-economic development of KZN as there are various significant pilgrimages. The emergence of African religious pilgrimages can create opportunities for people and stakeholders in the tourism sector to understand that it can contribute to tourism development and subsequently to the general local economic development of KZN which has several important pilgrimages. The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of African religious pilgrimages as a local economic development tool. The paper uses both the theory and document analysis to look at this phenomenon. Moreover, the paper uses Local economic development (LED) and Tourism value chains (TVCs) theories in guiding the lensing and framing of the questions and objective for this paper. The study adopted a mixed method research design; and applied a convenience sampling method of a non-probability sampling technique for primary data collection. IBM's SPSS version 27 software and content analysis were used for data analysis. The findings showed that while African religious pilgrimages have the potential to make socio-economy contributions, it is not yet perceived in that manner by local stakeholders (including municipalities) and religious leaders. The findings further suggest that the African religious pilgrimages can be used as a tool for local economic development. The study recommends that stakeholders to enhance the socio-economic potential of religious pilgrimages such that they promote them as tourism and/or socio-economic development stimuli within the study areas and elsewhere in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A religious pilgrimage is generally viewed as a process through which pilgrims depart geographically and psychologically from social structures that govern their daily lives for personal development and spiritual upliftment. Pilgrimages with a strong component of religious tourism are a big revenue generator for different countries for example, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Religious pilgrimages in particular, have not been classified under big revenue generators based on the fact that their spaces including surroundings have no tourism facilities for tourism development purposes. This paper aims to present both a review and systematic reflection on the trends that pertain to sustainable development of tourism at religious pilgrimage destinations. The relationship between religion and tourism, has been studied from different perspectives. Ideally, religious consciousness is considered as a positive influence to sustainable development providing religious travellers with an improved attitude towards nature. The paper uses both the theory and document analysis to look at this phenomenon. Further the paper uses Modernisation and Globalisation theories in guiding the lensing and framing of the questions and objectives for this study. The findings of this paper indicates that the study area could benefit a lot if the required tourism facilities could be available for tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]